This project provides another example of the returns to government from small changes informed by behavioural insights. BETA partnered with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to reduce work-related expense claims by $2.2 million and increase tax paid by $0.9 million with a simple letter sent...

This report examines the broad trends within the Commonwealth tax system since 2001–02 and the risks they present. An awareness of these risks allows policy makers to work to ensure the sustainability of the tax system over the medium term.

We examine Australia's Mature Age Worker Tax offset (MAWTO), a targeted earned income tax credit of up to $500 to incentivize participation of older workers that existed from 2004-05 to 2014-15. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that MAWTO increased labor market participation by around...

This analysis of the long term impacts of bracket creep shows that Australian taxpayers at all income levels have received more in tax cuts than they have lost through bracket creep – in other words, they have already been overcompensated for bracket creep.

The most basic requirement for any tax system is to raise enough revenues to fund the legitimate expenditure requirements of governments. Since the Global Financial Crisis, tax adequacy has become an increasing concern because of ill disciplined government spending.

This paper examines the Turnbull Government’s 2018 personal income tax proposals by presenting a distributional analysis of the tax cuts and then looking at some general tax principles and considerations that we can use to assess the present proposals.

We study optimal income tax progressivity in an environment where individuals are exposed to idiosyncratic income and health risks over the lifecycle. Our results, based on a calibration for the US economy, indicate that the presence of health risk combined with incomplete insurance markets amplifies...

The current debate over personal tax cuts and the Budget echoes a similar debate a decade ago, when just before the 2007 federal election, the Coalition government promised $31 billion of income tax cuts.

The Turnbull Government’s proposed personal income tax cuts are the largest ever proposed in a federal budget. As is outlined in this submission, the substantial reduction in revenue is not obviously consistent with the government’s medium-term fiscal strategy.

The Turnbull Government's planned tax cuts will result in a fundamental change to Australia's income tax system. It is not simply an income tax cut - it will move Australia to a flat tax for over 80% of workers.

This research models several politically acceptable pathways to reform negative gearing and CGT so as to reduce impacts on less sophisticated property investors. Two reform models— a rental deduction cap of $5,000 and a progressive rental deduction based on income—could lead to savings of over...